Key Points

  • The Appellate Division, Second Department, affirmed a Nassau County order awarding Licatesi Law Group 100 percent of the net contingency fee in a Judiciary Law § 475 fee-apportionment proceeding.
  • Licatesi obtained GEICO's full $100,000 policy-limit tender before Bachu, Bedesi & Nguyen sent a "stop work" letter, substituted in, and collected and retained the entire fee.
  • The panel held that the hearing evidence established the settlement was achieved solely through Licatesi's efforts, and that the appellants offered no time records or other evidence of their time and labor.
  • The court held the trial court providently exercised its discretion, stressing that apportionment turns on the circumstances and equities of each case and that the trial court is best positioned to assess them.
  • The affirmance was unanimous, unsigned, and with costs; the appellants' remaining contentions were rejected as without merit.

A New York appeals court upheld Wednesday an award of 100 percent of the net contingency fee to a personal injury firm that secured a $100,000 insurance settlement for a car-accident client, even though a second firm took over the case and received the settlement funds.

The Appellate Division, Second Department, affirmed an order by a Nassau County trial judge awarding Licatesi Law Group, LLP 100 percent of the net contingency fee from the client's personal injury matter. The four-justice panel ruled unanimously in an unsigned decision and order. The losing side, the firm Bachu, Bedesi & Nguyen and attorneys Darmin Bachu and Tony Nguyen, must also pay costs.

The decision leaves the replacement firm, which had collected and kept the whole fee, with no share of it. The panel held that the hearing record showed the settlement was reached solely through Licatesi's work. It also found that the replacement firm had offered no evidence of the work it had done.

According to the decision, Licatesi represented a client who was injured in a motor vehicle accident. Licatesi alleged that its retainer agreement entitled the firm to 33⅓ percent "of any judgment, settlement or otherwise" recovered on the client's behalf.

Licatesi also alleged that it obtained a full tender of the $100,000 policy limit from GEICO, the other driver's insurer. It alleged that, after that, it received a "stop work" letter from attorney Tony B. Nguyen. The letter advised that Bachu, Bedesi & Nguyen would be substituting in as the client's new counsel.

GEICO then disbursed the $100,000 in settlement funds to Bachu, Bedesi & Nguyen. That firm, the decision says, "collected and retained the entire attorney's fee." The decision does not say why the client changed lawyers after the tender, and it does not state the dollar amount of the net fee.

Licatesi filed a proceeding under Section 475 of New York's Judiciary Law, asking the court to apportion the attorney's fees for the legal services it had rendered. Eileen C. Daly-Sapraicone of the Supreme Court, Nassau County, held a hearing. In an order dated January 10, 2025, the court awarded Licatesi 100 percent of the net contingency fee.

Bachu, Bedesi & Nguyen, Bachu and Nguyen appealed part of that order. The Second Department's decision does not summarize their arguments. After addressing the fee award, the panel disposed of everything else in one sentence: "The appellants' remaining contentions are without merit."

The panel began from the principle that a fee split between successive lawyers turns on the facts of the case and on the trial judge's view of them. "The issue of apportionment of an attorney's fee is controlled by the circumstances and equities of each particular case, and the trial court is in the best position to assess such factors," the court wrote, quoting Rodriguez v. Ryder Truck Rental, Inc.

The decision then set out what a trial court must weigh. "In making this determination, the court should consider the amount of time spent by the attorneys on the case, the nature of the work performed, and the relative contributions of counsel toward achieving the outcome," the panel wrote, quoting Stephen v. City of New York.

Applying those factors, the panel found that the evidence ran entirely one way. The testimony and documents Licatesi submitted at the hearing "established that the settlement of the personal injury matter for the GEICO policy limit of $100,000 was achieved solely through its own efforts," the court held, citing Robinson & Yablon, P.C. v. Sacco & Fillas, LLP.

The panel found nothing in the record on the other side. "The appellants provided no time records or other evidence from which their time and labor could be ascertained," the court wrote, citing Hinds v. Kilgallen.

From those two findings, the panel concluded that the trial court "providently exercised its discretion in awarding LLG 100% of the net contingency fee." LLG is the decision's shorthand for Licatesi. That conclusion reflects the deference the panel described at the outset, which treats the split as the trial court's judgment call to make.

The court relied for that conclusion on Del Rosso v. Staten Is. Univ. Hosp. and again on Robinson & Yablon. No justice wrote separately.

Justice Mark C. Dillon presided over the panel. Justices Paul Wooten, Laurence L. Love and Elena Goldberg Velazquez concurred.

Licatesi was represented by Steven J. Harfenist of Harfenist Kraut & Perlstein, LLP. Bachu, Bedesi & Nguyen, Bachu and Nguyen were represented by Steven Alexander Biolsi of Biolsi Law Group, P.C.

The ruling leaves the January 2025 order in place insofar as it was appealed, and it awards Licatesi its costs on the appeal. The decision, 2026 NY Slip Op 06440, is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports.